residence.” These accounts broadened the appeal of Haitian emigration, and enticed some blacks to seek Haiti rather than to continue “like wander[ing] Israelites, without a tabernacle and without a home.”55
As the idea of Haitian emigration gained momentum in the 1820s, the American Colonization Society acknowledged the threat that Haitian emigration posed to their own African colonization plans, even as colonization societies proliferated throughout the nation. In fact, ACS auxiliaries and “Committees of Correspondence” had sprouted in New York, Maryland, Vermont, Virginia, Connecticut, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Tennessee, and Kentucky.56 Virginia boasted twenty-one auxiliaries, thus establishing it as the epicenter of colonization sentiment in the South, while New York’s six auxiliaries led all northern states. State auxiliaries represented an extension of the larger national organization, which operated out of Washington, D.C.57
The ACS’s broad base of support and its distinguished membership came with benefits and drawbacks. Agents of state auxiliaries often cited the membership of esteemed statesmen such as Henry Clay as a way to gain financial support and recruit new members from the white population of towns and cities. At times, though, the national affiliation proved to be a burden for agents in the Northeast who had joined the colonization movement to support what they believed were the organization’s benevolent intentions. In their effort to unite southern and northern interests, the members of the parent organization shied away from any overt declaration that the organization supported gradual emancipation, and instead claimed only that it “encouraged” free blacks to leave America for their West African settlement. This did not bode well for those members and agents interested in colonization as a tool for the emancipation of Africans enslaved in the South, or as a means to offer free blacks an alternative to living in a society rife with rampant “Negrophobia.”
For this reason, Prince Saunders and his ally, the Reverend Thomas Paul Sr., exploited the ACS’s ambiguous stance on emancipation in order to undermine the ACS and African colonization. Some ACS agents reported meeting blacks who were openly hostile to colonization, yet supportive of Haitian emigration. When, for example, Loring Dewey, an agent of the American Colonization Society and the New York auxiliary, attempted to recruit new members, he found that black people’s unfavorable view of the ACS did not mean they were opposed to leaving the United States. From the hamlets in the Hudson Valley to the outskirts of New York City, he noted, “a preference of Hayti over Africa was frequently expressed.” Among those whites sympathetic to the plight of free blacks in the North, Dewey discovered that “there was not only an opposition to colonization in Africa manifested by many, but an assurance given of their ready aid to promote emigration to Hayti.” Taking these views into consideration, Dewey wrote to the American Colonization Society in the hope of gaining support for Haitian emigration as well.58
As he waited for a reply, Dewey shared his idea with his colleagues who, as it turned out, were not at all enthusiastic about Haitian emigration. General Robert G. Harper even chided Dewey about it, explaining that Haitian emigration would not serve the interest of the larger organization.59 This did not deter Dewey, who, on his own, wrote to President Jean-Pierre Boyer inquiring about African American emigration. When the managers of the New York Auxiliary Society learned of Dewey’s correspondence with President Boyer, a special meeting was called to discuss his actions. White slaveholding members, and their sympathizers in Virginia and Washington, D.C., viewed Haiti with scorn, and many of them believed that a free black emigration movement to Haiti would threaten the perpetuation of slavery in America. Thus, the New York auxiliary was compelled to rebuke Dewey for his actions. On April 1, 1824, the New York Colonization Society Board of Managers claimed that “colonization is the only ‘remedy’ for slavery, the mighty ‘evil’ of our country. . . . Hayti, which at first would seem to offer great advantages, is found, by examination, to be encumbered with difficulties, which will probably for a long time prevent colonization there to any considerable extent.”60 This mild statement was soon followed up with a more forceful comment in the press, rejecting Dewey and his Haitian project. By May, the New York Colonization Society went on record to declare, “The New York Auxiliary Colonization Society has officially disavowed the proceedings of Mr. Dewey, the agent, in opening a correspondence with President Boyer, of Hayti, for the establishment of colonies in that Island, and recommended the removal of Mr. Dewey from this agency.”61
The New York Colonization Society accepted this recommendation for Dewey’s dismissal when they met in July. According to one account, “certain resolutions were passed disclaiming the correspondence of Mr. Dewey, and denouncing the plan of emigration to Hayti as contrary to the known wishes and interfering with the great national objects of the American Colonization Society.”62 Accordingly, Dewey was dismissed as an agent of the American Colonization Society. However, a representative of the parent organization stepped forward to establish a new society “to promote the emigration of the Blacks to Hayti.” Twenty-five members were appointed to create a committee to call for a closer look at black Americans’ interest in leaving for Haiti. In an unusual turn of events, these ACS members organized a “Haytian Emigration Society” of their own, perhaps to co-opt the movement.63 However, it took almost two months for the committee to establish the society and to begin recruiting blacks to emigrate to Haiti. It is unclear to what degree these efforts worked to undermine “legitimate” Haitian emigration efforts by free blacks or to stifle critics of the ACS who claimed that the organization needed to accept black interest in Haiti within the broad parameters of colonization. West Africa, after all, was not the only place to resettle the few blacks who sought to leave America.
Even if the New York Colonization Society had missed its opportunity to shape the destiny of Haitian emigration, the dismissed New York Colonization Society agent, Loring Dewey, met with others to consider President Boyer’s overtures towards black Americans. After discussing business matters, a Dr. J. Wainwright put forth a resolution recommending that “a Committee of Nine be appointed to take into consideration the documents submitted to this Meeting in relation to the Emigration of Coloured Persons to Hayti, and report to an adjourned meeting, to be held on Friday the 25th.”64
Peter A. Jay, the son of Founding Father John Jay and an active member of the New York Manumission Society, and eight others met to discuss the free and enslaved black population of the state, and the July 4, 1827, termination of slavery in New York.65 They wondered whether African Americans in the state would “cheerfully embrace any opportunity that may present to place the descendants of Africa in a situation which will furnish them with more powerful motives, than are offered among ourselves, to respectability of character, and intellectual improvement.” The goal, though, was still to convince free blacks to leave, whether to Africa or Haiti. Historian Leslie Harris explains that in 1826, delegates from the New York Manumission Society were perhaps influenced by this goal, and they called on members of the American Convention to promote “the transportation of the whole coloured population, now held in bondage, to the coast of Africa, or the island of St. Domingo.66
After discussing the prospects of Haiti as a suitable location for black emigration, the committee resolved “that it is expedient to form a Society, to be called ‘The Society for promoting the Emigration of Free Persons of Colour to Hayti.’” They established the price of subscriptions and membership, and their desire to create a board of directors. Before the meeting closed, Chairman Thomas Eddy read an “interesting communication” that described a meeting among notable African Americans, including Peter Williams and Samuel E. Cornish, that discussed President Boyer’s proposition as well as black interest in such a venture.67 Members also pointed out that African American “excitement” over Haitian emigration was intertwined with their anticolonization sentiment. Whites had come to believe that emigration to Haiti demonstrated black agency, and African Americans’ desire to participate in the success of a black republic that represented black people’s abilities and potential. This of course did not mean that the majority of free blacks felt so inclined to leave. However, for those free blacks who had come to the conclusion that New York City would never be a place where blacks could live in safety from white
